Silksong Journal, Entry 12

Just like its development, Hollow Knight: Silksong doesn't want to end. But I mean this in a good way, where this is by far one of most extensive Metroidvanias so far. The third act really turns everything on its head, making it feel like a whole new game has started. Combine this with having obtained the last ability needed to reach places, it gave me reason to re-explore all of Pharloom, where there truly was something new to discover everywhere.

My goal was to get most of the optional content done, where I have arrived at 96%. I've fought a number bosses, followed a familiar face all over the map, did some deliveries to the farthest corners of the world, searched for the last fleas, participated in a variety of mini-games, found the missing Crest and silk skills, and upgraded my needle one last time.

Well, one thing you will find everywhere for certain are the Void Masses, which turn all enemies in the "room" into their void-infested counterparts, until you destroy them. You need 12 of them for a quest, but I have made it my mission to find and destroy them all, because traversing is much more fun without them.

I like using the Sting Shards for them, especially when they hang in hard to reach places. You can just throw one or two into the Void Mass, run away when it attacks, and repeat. And to see theses sacks gone is quite liberating. I've previously compared the void effect to the X parasite in Metroid Dread, but the void is far more excessive and completely wrecks the game's balance when all enemies get it. Dealing with it is not fun and the Void Masses can make backtracking in Act 3 a bit tedious.

But backtrack you want. I don't think any other ability in the game gave me this many new options as the Silk Soar. It doesn't really lead to any new areas, except for a minor one, but there are secrets hidden behind little holes on ceilings everywhere. Well, some of it may only give you more insights into the environments – you can look at Lugoli's gigantic collection preserving jars, for example. But for the most part you're rewarded with something more important, which even includes the last two silk skills.

One of the two is the Rune Rage, which you can get from the First Sinner, another Weaver battle (featuring the awesome music, and the funny noises of the Widow). However, I don't really like this one. Maybe it's good with enemies that have huge hit boxes, or in certain mob battle rooms, but it's too slow and random for my taste. You may even hit nothing at all and just waste the silk, which is also true for the counter skill, the Cross Stitch.

To be fair, I'm not using the silk skills all that often, because I need the silk for healing. So, I mostly just utilize them if I have some to spare. Thread Storm is my favorite one, because it is very good for crowd control, so you will usually see it equipped on my screenshots. And it does a ton of damage. But if this game were to get "radiant" boss battles or challenges at some point, where you are not allowed to be hit at all, then the silk skills (together with the Shaman Crest) would become more interesting, I suppose.

What brought me into this general direction was the Pinstress, who is longing for a duel on Mount Fay. Luckily, with the Silk Soar you can quickly return from the nearby bench for a retry. Just position yourself exactly to the left of the lower exit and then fire up. You will hit directly under the platform where the battle takes place and from there can reach the platform to the right, which has some silk on it. Without this shortcut this could have been frustrating...

Other than the location, the fight itself wasn't all too memorable. You get the Pin Badge, a blue tool that halves the time for your charge attack. The equivalent in Hollow Knight was actually quite good, because it only takes one charm notch and the stronger attacks are powerful. But with the crest system it heavily depends on the crest itself and then it competes with the other blue tools, where there are simply too many good ones.

I think that some of those should have been moved into the yellow category, because I don't have that much difficulty deciding there. With the Wanderer I still keep using the Compass most of the time, even though I don't necessarily need it any longer. Otherwise I always have the Weighted Belt equipped (on the Vesticrest) and the Ascendant's Grip, and depending on whether I go into battle or not I switch between the two Magnetite tools. The Silkspeed Anklets would be great if they didn't use up your silk. And I don't like the Scuttlebrace at all, because it behaves weirdly and sometimes even causes misinputs from my end.

You do get a hint from the Pinstress to look for the Brightvein location at the mountain's core, which I probably wouldn't have found this soon otherwise. It's a platforming challenge that makes use of the ice, which so far was only present in a single, small cave. The ice quickly reappears after you break it, making this similar to most blocks in the classic Metroid. But this scored me another Mask Shard for my ninth mask.

Since I was in the neighborhood, I also did the courier quest for the Mask Maker, though you "only" need to clear the way up til the Slab. And you want to get rid of the Void Masses on the way before you even attempt clearing the way...

Later on I also did the remaining town courier quests, where I had the same trickery with Songclave as before. I had cleared the entire path (over Sinner's Road), but once I returned to Bellhart, they didn't have Songclave on their list any longer, but a new target: Fleatopia. Stop doing this! Why can't there be quests for all targets at all times?

Well, it's also my fault for not checking beforehand and I made the best out of this situation. Since I wasn't particularly eager to go through Bilewater, I used the cleared road to Songclave and then continued from there into the Putrified Ducts. And afterwards I could still use the cleared road to finally do the Songclave delivery...

Sadly, this was only for checking the boxes, because all you get for your efforts are Rosaries and I have so many of these at the moment that I've started using Rosary Cannon for fun. By now I have more than 5000 on me and I've reached the maximum of strings and necklaces. So, I wish that you could buy or craft the Heavy and Pale Rosary Necklaces somehow...

Hollow Knight had a similar problem, where early on you can never have enough Geo, but later on you have purchased everything and then drown in it (some Zelda games are guilty of this as well). It kind of solved this by introducing Divine in the Grimme Troupe DLC, who can turn your fragile charms into unbreakable ones for ludicrous amounts of money. But I have yet to find something that expensive in Silksong.

Trobbio had the chance to sell me amazing goods, but instead he chose to go for a dramatic rematch. I love the change in tone for this one, while at the same time he goes even harder on the fireworks show. This was such a fun boss battle for me that I've welcomed the second round with a smile.

However, I have learned that you can actually get and use one of his quills, should you not purchase the one from Shakra. And it's a shame that you can't just collect them all and select the one your prefer. Plus, if you get the quill this late in the game, you will only see it in action a few times...

Another place where I could potentially spend some more money is the "town" from the reveal trailer that looks like the inside of Davy Jones's locker. I kept assuming that there has to be an aquatic area above the lake where Fleatopia resides, because there is a lot of free space on the map there and it kind of made sense, but this doesn't seem to be the case. Instead, you will find a small patch of familiar grounds from the first game:

The Fungal Wastes. This is to bring back a known character from Hollow Knight, the only one besides Hornet: the Herald, better known as "Mister Mushroom". I was wondering when that will happen, because it was promised at the end of the first game, given that you have completed his sidequest. You get a very similar quest here, which lets you follow his journey through Pharloom in some riddles. And it makes sense that they have saved this for the third Act, which is where they have been re-introducing things from the first game.

The wish icon even looks like the Spore Shroom Charm, which was required to understand him previously. But for some reason Hornet can understand his words just fine, just not their meaning... (Which leads to some funny interactions, because she is clearly frustrated at times.)

But she knew him already from Hallownest and is aware that he is around for impending doom, the "Passing of the Age", as the quest would phrase it. And this has ignited a bigger journey with a variety of new discoveries on the way... Like another Moss Mother down below, but this time infected with void. I'm happy that I've found the double Moss Mother battle earlier in the game, because I've heard that they can also become infected... Which makes the battle even worse, I imagine. 

You follow Mister Mushroom to Bone Bottom and then into the Far Fields, where I found my first Rhinogrund in the wild. I would later discover why that is... But since I was here, I got curious about the ant queen boss I knew from the trailers. There is a statue of her at the end of the Hunter's March and to proceed from there you need the Silk Soar. However, the shortcut into that part was now blocked off...

And this leads to reliving the march through the Hunter's March, where this time the enemies at the end will have gotten the void upgrade pack, making this even harder, despite you growing so much stronger. At least the way back there is easier by now.

For some reason I thought that the "Hunter's Heart", which is part of the current main quest, has to do with the Huntress from the Putrified Ducts, who may have moved down here after hatching her children. But after the ant queen's statue it opens up a whole new part of the Far Fields, which eventually leads you to the heart's location, owned by the Skarrsinger Karmelita. These days she has grown quite a bit, but you can experience her youth by diving into her memories, thanks to the new Elegy of the Deep.

It's like the Dream Nail, pretty much, only that you're not experiencing the fantasies and twisted minds of certain characters, but their past. A look into the Pharloom that once was. This feature comes a bit late in the game, where it only seems to be relevant for this last main quest, but this has infinite potential for expanding the game on all sorts of ends via future DLC. Similar to the White Palace, you can just throw whole new areas into the game, without the need of properly integrating them into the current map or even making sense...

In any case, it's an impressive boss battle and you're simply thrown out of the memory when you get killed. But she makes you fight some of her underlings first, which includes two heavy guards, who would have qualified as their own boss fight in the previous game.

So, I didn't force it. Since this is a memory showing Karmelita at her prime, I also wanted to be my best for this. In the very least my needle should be enhanced one more time, but having all Mask Shards also sounded good. And thus I've decided to do as much as possible before I deal with these bosses from the past.

The first thing to come across is a second mini-game, now that the target shooting is no more, one hidden in a cave that screamed, "another Savage Beastfly is waiting here!" But the inside of the giant skeleton is actually used for a racing course, hosted by the Sprintmaster Swift (named after the Charm in Hollow Knight, though the icon for his wish and the character itself actually look like the Dashmaster).

The most fun part about this is the little helper bug and the Mario Kart reference, where you can go for a turbo start if you start pressing the dash button at the second bell ring. The first two courses were "first try" easy, but the third one took me a while, because I kept screwing up after the rebound at the end of the cave, where you first need to the Clawline and then pogo on a balloon. For some reason I always came a bit short for the latter, even though I explicitly used the Hunter crest for this challenge. And this became frustrating, especially when it kept happening to me in the third lap.

But there was another Mask Shard to gain here, so it was absolutely worth it. And he's teasing a revenge for later... I can't wait...

Reaching this point of the Far Fields made me think that I could finally get behind the gate next to the Pilgrim's Rest, where now the slamming had stopped (and the house got wrecked). But you could not get there from above, instead I simply missed the hidden passage at the Bellway station that led there ever since the early game. And now that I had arrived after all this time, the Rhinogrund was already dead, taken by the void (which is why I saw another one earlier – otherwise I couldn't have completed the journal entry).

One last Mask Shard could be obtained from a quest from Bellhart, leading right back into the new Far Fields, where you have to track down a hunter named Gurr, who leaves lots of traps on his path, and eventually drags you down into a battle of life and death.

I was hoping that defeating him would get you his traps as a tool that you can use, because those are quite something, but instead you can take a look at his... collection:

Uhm, that's actually impressive! He even got one of Karmelita's elite guards, which now seem to be extinct. But I would have preferred a crafting recipe for those traps in any case, though they would have been just bigger Sting Shards, supposedly.

But I got the last Mask Shard from this quest, so I have the full ten masks now, which means that I can now take as many hits as I could do at the start of the game, where you only have five masks, but enemies were still considerate enough to cause only single masks of damage. Fantastic...

I swear, if Team Cherry makes another Hollow Knight game, I won't be surprised when everything does triple damage, because they need to up the ante with each one.

There was a second wish that I have received at Bellhart at the same time, where Zaza calls you to the Blasted Steps. Following the little guy was super cute, but this had to end badly... You find your old buddy Garmond controlled by the void and you have to take him out. So, you get to fight him after all, just not in the way I wanted it to (and it's a different journal entry).

Well, it had to happen eventually that you will lose one of your friends, where I never expected him to last this long (I first thought that he would die during the Moorwing battle), but it's still heartfelt. Especially since this happens so randomly and gets caused by the whole void catastrophe, which Hornet is responsible for. I still wonder if you can save him somehow or spare him this fate, e.g. by battling him earlier in the game, which I wasn't able to find in time. But then you would be lacking the Lost Garmond journal entry, so I suppose it's inevitable. You also obtain the Hero's Memento, where these mementos are little trophies that you can put on your shelf in your Bellhome.

RIP Garmond, you will be missed!

Back to my previous goals, the one thing I wanted the most now was upgrading the needle one last time. But for this I needed two things: find one more Pale Oil and Pinmaster Plinney. The latter had left a note that he went to the graves in the woods, which had me confused, because I couldn't remember any graves at Shellwood. Well, he managed to hide in a nook that I kept passing by (just like the Bell Hermit), so I even went as far and explored the parts of the Shellwood that are only accessible via the Silk Soar from within the Citadel, which leads to the next heart location... Not that this made any sense as the place where the Pinmaster went, but maybe you could have found some graves there and the NPCs are not bound to the same roads as the player. What I found instead was "Shrine Guardian Seth", but more on him in my next entry...

I had no clue where to look for the Pale Oil, but the first two were acquired in the Citadel, so I assumed that this has to be true for the third one as well. And as it so happened, there was still another wish to grant that would eventually lead into new territories of the Citadel: following Mister Mushroom!

His riddles speak of a "test of fitness, past the Cradle's peak" for the final stop, which sounded like it's going to be the next Path of Pain. But first I had to find him at Greymoor, the Slab (where the location was easy enough to identify due to me finding the cage earlier), and on Mount Fay... where I had to climb the whole mountain yet again! By now I have so much practice that I could do it in record time But you can take some shortcuts with the Silk Soar, so it's not so bad at this point.

Finally, you can climb the shaft from the beginning of Act 3 and proceed from there. The first thing that you can discover is the severed arm of the Grand Mother Silk, which you can bind for the last silk skill: the Pale Nails. Those are three homing projectiles that can be cast and it's actually quite cool, though I still think the Thread Storm is superior.

But you can go up even further, which brings you to a thorny platforming challenge. It has three sections and you can heal yourself between each section thanks to never-ending streams of burrowers. There is also a bench right before this challenge, so it's overall very forgiving. But I was in need of this forgiveness, because there was one part that I kept failing for a while, which you can see in the screenshot above. You have to time your double jump just perfectly to get high enough.

This challenge mainly focused on throwing your Clawline beneath a rock, which has thorns on the side that you're facing and a flat surface on the backside. And then this repeats. So, you jump, shoot your Clawline, jump again. There were some pogo sections in between to mix things up and one of them can get a little crowded, but otherwise this was again nothing compared to the White Palace. And I'm only talking about the White Palace, not even the Path of Pain.

So, you would think that this challenge is reasonable enough to warrant a proper reward, like the last Pale Oil, but that's not the case. It only completes the Mister Mushroom quest, where I'm now expecting an additional ending scene.

However, there is technically another reward: you can reach the surface above Pharloom and find the Nameless Town. There are only some very easily defeated bugs here and a bit of lore, but this will give you the Surface Memento. Of course, these mementos also don't hold any real value, but at least you can display them in your Bellhome for the bragging rights, so they offer more than just some optional sigil in the Hunter's Journal, which is all you got for some of the crazier challenges in Hollow Knight, like the Path of Pain. The mementos, however, are much more incentivized to collect them all, because you would have clear gaps in your desk menu (and shelf) otherwise.

You can also open a shortcut back to the start of the "test of fitness", which directly connects the bench with the town. And this is very considerate, in case some players discover this area before Mister Mushroom.

But while I had gained more insight and experience, I have yet to gain more of that oddly suggestive oil... So, this brought me back into the Citadel, where there was still one more place to investigate: the outdoor area next to Songclave, above the Whispering Vaults. In the very least, there was still the last flea hiding there. To be honest, I knew that you could get there from investigating missable contents, because that's the place where you can eventually fight Garmond while he's still himself.

And the flea location on the map itself wasn't helpful, because it's so close to the Putrified Ducts that I thought that it might be a hidden cave somewhere there. There was also a trap door in the lower part of Bilewater, which could be only opened from above. So, I kept hugging the walls in both of these areas on a large circle to find a way in there. I even tried from Phantom's lair. But the actual way to get into this "hole" on the map was from the Whispering Vaults, which also took me a while to find, because it's in the furthest corner... This is the type of breakthrough that I was looking for at the end of Act 2, but which had evaded me. And this led to a number of things all at once.

 

You can reach the roof from here... or you can fall down deep into Bilewater, to the trap door I just mentioned. This brings you to the Twisted Bud, which is a familiarly looking baby that keeps crying from out of your inventory... And nothing will ever give you a bigger sense of urgency to be done with a quest, not even an alarm countdown.

Earlier I also had discovered the Broodling at the Slab, another baby left by the Broodmother, which is asking for food. For a moment I considered bringing it the Twisted Bud and maybe I should have, because when you bring this thing to its mother, your reward is being sacrificed and infested with roots. So much for being nice...

It leaves you with a new moveset, which is quite nice, but also with only enough silk for the Clawline and you can't use any tools. There is a hidden ending for when you defeat the Grand Mother Silk in this state, but without the hivemind of the internet this is one very abstruse secret to discover. And for me this info came too late (though, I could potentially use the rewind feature, but I would need to copy my save slot first, which you can't do easily). In a second playthrough I will definitely give it a try, however. I kept saying that the Grand Mother Silk was a bit too easy, which should change in that scenario...

You wake up at the Chapel of the Witch in a new part of the map, which directly connects the Shellwoods with the Marrow (which is ideal for the courier quest to the Survivor's Camp). And this solves yet another mystery: the big skull rock formation at the top of the Marrow, where you will blow a tunnel right through it. It's all coming together now.

And this infestation quest finally opens the door to the outcast Bellhome at the edge of Bellhart, where Yarnaby lives. That's a little fly who loves torture devices surgical equipment and who had been asking for "a worthy specimen with something nasty inside them", which couldn't possibly have been more vague. I kept wondering about what she could have wanted for quite a while, where at one point I even brought maggots from the Sinner's Road. But this triggers some special dialogue, which only then made me realize that Yarnaby wasn't talking about some object or item, but about your medical condition.

Once you're cursed, you're also directly pointed towards Yarnaby by the residents of Bellhart, so it's not some big mystery what you need to do at this stage. You still have to fetch something from the two gut lovers at the Sinner's Road, but they have deceased in Act 3... So, I just had to take the item and return (it's probably different when you're still in Act 2).

And after a hilariously discomforting cutscene you are rewarded with the Witch crest, which was the last one missing for me. It should be the second-to-last that you can find otherwise without some shenanigans, because only the Shaman seems to be exclusive to Act 3. But the Witch is quite nice, probably among my top 3.

Its range is fantastic, without the slower attack speed of the Reaper crest. The pogo goes downwards with a long vertical hitbox. And it has a total of three blue slots (but no yellow), which super powerful. As I said earlier in this post, there are way more potent blue tools than yellow ones, so being able to combine four of them at once is a big advantage. The healing is unusual, however. It siphons from enemies nearby, which also damages them, but this is completely counterintuitive to how you usually heal with the other crests and also puts you at a greater risk of being interrupted.

I will still keep using the Wanderer most of the time, because nothing beats having greater attack speed, but both the Witch and the Architect have proven themselves to be good secondary picks for whenever you can't just mash wildly or need more distance. I had used the Reaper in the past instead, because the extra silk is pretty awesome, but it's just too slow for my taste.

The Hunter's extra damage is also good in theory and you can even upgrade it a second time, but in practice I still get hit too often for it too make a difference. Like the Shaman, I guess this will shine when you eventually are not allowed to get hit at all. And I never use the Beast. I think it just stinks and wasn't worth the trouble of obtaining it, because the special healing doesn't even let you get more than any of the others, but you have to work for it. It would be great if the effect lasted longer and you were able to heal as many masks as you can.

Anyway, you can eventually bind Eva herself, which gives you the "Sylphsong" ability, which refills your silk at a bench. So, it's like Salubra's Blessing from Hollow Knight, but much cooler and faster.

Now, I had achieved quite a lot by finding one breakable wall at the Citadel, but I still didn't get what I oilriginally was looking for. I had another clue, however, because when I had first returned to Bellhart in Act 3, I was greeted with the "Craw Summons". This confused me at first, because it looked like it came from the hole in the ceiling and sounded like I had to go there... (And I didn't see the item in my inventory, which explains this a little better.)

But this brings you to the "Court of Craws", where you just get sentenced to death by the crow folks at Greymoor, which only make you look stupid for going there in the first place. However, they have upgraded themselves with metallic beaks and crowns to become sturdier foes. And this led me to believe that maybe they had some fine oil to make their new beaks nice and shiny... So, the fight was on.

It's another annoying boss battle where the boss itself isn't overly hard, but makes things hard by continuously summoning his underlings around him. You also have to go through a whole mob battle, before the Crawfather does himself the honor. In the end I just spammed saw blades to be done with it...

And you get another memento? For real?! I understand it with Garmond, because that battle was personal, but this is an optional boss, an annoying one at that, where I expected a proper reward for it. Why would I want a memento from these stupid crows? Give me my Pale Oil, or at least a Memory Locket... Well, you also get the Craw Bell, which you can install to your Bellhome and will be filled with Shards and Rosaries over time. That's nice, but nothing that I needed at this point.

You can also find an opened wall nearby, which leads to a new area called Verdania. This is where you reunite with the Green Prince, but since this also is about diving into memories, I have ignored this part for now. I didn't expect that you can get more Pale Oil out of a memory... 

Well, there was still one other thing to do... I had found the last flea and visited Fleatopia already, which earned me the "Egg of Flealia" charm. It reduces the costs of silk skills, which would be awesome if it weren't limited to being at full health. It seems like an unnecessary reference to the Grubberfly's Elegy, which in itself was a reference to sword beams The Legend of Zelda.

If you have gotten that item in Hollow Knight after collecting all Grubs, then you might know what disturbing scene came after. And Silksong uses this perfectly to play with your expectations. Perfectly! First the fleas start talking about preparing a ritual for the end of the world, which in itself already sets red flags.

And when you return the next time, the fleas are all away, the "looming danger" music from Hollow Knight kicks in, and you can see the Fleamaster with a deadpan expression waiting for you under a weird wooden construction. It doesn't get any more ominous than that. Will the fleas turn rabid and you have to kill them all?

Nope, this starts the "Festival of the Flea", a collection of mini-games, yippie! Well played, Team Cherry, well played! You got me there for a moment... But after a while I honestly wished that this was instead some boss battle, where I have to slaughter all the fleas, because mini-games can be the most aggravating thing in any good Action Adventure.

And I applaud that this is another element that they have brought from your classic Zelda into your classic Metroid. That's great and it is a good addition to Hollow Knight. Buuuuut... mini-games can be very hit and miss. I liked the target shooting and I liked the Sprintmaster for the most part, but this flea circus has been testing my patience a little longer, because those are three mini-games for the prize of one (this is not a typo, there is only one prize to get for winning all three).

I did them from the right to the left. The "Flea Bounce" was by far the easiest, because at this point in the game the pogo should be in your half spider, half wyrm DNA. If you use either the Wanderer or the Reaper it should be simple enough, if you don't forget to float.

The "Flea Dodge" was a lot more random and dependent on luck. Sometimes you can just stand on the same platform for seconds without anything going at your way, other times it can create these near-impossible-to-dodge scenarios. For example, you may have to grab the second platform, but a flea shoots right at it in this very moment. At least you only have to do it for 65 seconds straight and not 1000.

The worst is the "Flea Juggle", however, because not only can its randomness screw you over, it's also very easy to get overwhelmed and confused. This is where I first truly made use of the Shaman crest. Its beams give you a lot of leeway for your timing, so you can strike a little earlier, and they also makes it easier to catch fleas that may drop down further to the sides. I just stayed on the ground the whole time and tried to focus on the one flea where the bell helmet is visible.

Oh, by the way, there is a funny Asterix/Obelix reference in here, because you can sometimes see a flea dive into the cauldron of Flew Brew. And this super-powered flea appears in the mini-games with increased speed. 

Now, if you beat all the highscores, you are rewarded with a piñata, filled with lots of Rosaries and Shards... and the Pale Oil! This was the last place where I would have expected it and the effort is insane. Not only do you have to find all fleas in the game, you also have to master three whole mini-games on top.

It's the question whether getting all the Pale Ores in Hollow Knight was worse or not. Individually, none of them may have been as bad (except arguably doing the Trial of the Conqueror in the Colosseum), but you had to find increasingly more for each nail upgrade. Here the game is asking you to do a whole lot for one, except for the Pale Oil that you can just pick up from the Whispering Vaults.

But it doesn't matter. I got what I wanted. I have now fully upgraded my Needle. I have all Mask Shards and Spool Fragments. And I have all crests and silk skills. So, I think I'm ready for the finale.

I'm still missing a Memory Locket, however, as well as at least one Craftmetal and three tools. One of them is what I need the Craftmetal for, the Sawtooth Circlet from the Architect. Then there is one more blue tool and a red one missing, but it's not like I have fully explored everything yet, where there might be more at Verdania and the upper Sands of Karak. (I did get the electric darts, which can be obtained from some new foes that have appeared at the Memorium.) And there are probably some more breakable walls that I have missed somewhere...